Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

A Loyal Heart on Valorous Wings

Wish pulled back her hoof and shook her head. “This... this isn’t right.”

A crack appeared in the darkness over her head, like a pane of glass suddenly on the verge of shattering.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. What matters is if you want it. Don’t you want it?” Harlequin Grey asked her.

“More than anything,” Wish nodded, looking at the black question mark. “But that isn’t my Cutie Mark. My real Cutie Mark, whatever it is, will come to me after I’ve discovered what my special talent is all on my own. It can’t be given, it can’t be shown to me, it can’t be sped up, and I can’t take a shortcut to getting it. W-Whatever Cutie Mark you’re showing to me... it wouldn’t be what I have inside me.”

More cracks started to spread out through the darkness and Harlequin Grey’s eye twitched.

“You don’t know what you’re doing right now. You’re not just refusing a Cutie Mark, you’re refusing the only possibility you have to be happy in your life,” he said to her, a bit more forcefully than he had spoken so far. “If you don’t accept this, you’ll always have to live with those thoughts in your head, those memories of what you did as the Avatar. You will never be able to escape them. Your father, dead by your hoof, how you attempted to drown the entire kingdom and more in despair, you will never escape that reality for the rest of your life. Only by taking what I offer you will you be able to find peace. You’re just a filly, do you truly want the rest of your life to be nothing but regret and despair?”

“I’d regret it just as much to live the lie you want me to. T-That fake life couldn’t make me happy either,” Wish shook her head and defiantly looked up at him. “I don’t know what my future will be like, I-I don’t know how many nights I’m going to cry myself to sleep, or wake up from a horrible nightmare, but I know that I have to be the one to grow and get the happiness I’m looking for. Rainbow Dash told me that. I have to make the life I want. It’s going to be tough, sad things will happen, but it’s my life. And I know that one day if I keep holding onto hope that I’ll be happy. It’s not just a Cutie Mark I want, but a life full of friends, a life full of magic, honesty, laughter, generosity, kindness, and loyalty.”

With each word, Harlequin Grey’s hoof shook in anger and the cracks spread out even further.

“Are you sure?” He glowered at her.

Wish narrowed her eyes and looked him dead in the face. “In the words of Rainbow Dash: Go jump off a bridge.”

The stars and black question mark disappeared as he put down his hoof and clicked his tongue.

“Fine then. It’s time for the hard way,” he said and tilted his horn (that may not have been there a second ago) down at her.

Wish shrank away from him and leaned back on the stool. “W-What are you-”

She didn’t get to finish. And he didn’t get to do anything. The darkness around them shattered into pieces and fell away, revealing a cosmic starscape that swirled about them like a galaxy, while a rainbow pegasus landed right between them with her wings outstretched.

Harlequin Grey grit his teeth and jumped away.

“Rainbow Dash!” Wish yelled.

“How did you get here?” Harlequin Grey growled before a frown settled on his face. “Tch, that obnoxious fool... I’ll get him back for this.”

Rainbow Dash ignored him and looked at Wish. “Are you alright?”

Wish nodded, exhausted after what she had been through she could barely find the air to breath. “Y-Yes, I-”

“Sleep,” Harlequin Grey sharply said as he glanced at the filly.

Instant drowsiness overtook Wish and she slumped down on top of the stool in the middle of speaking.

“Wish!” Rainbow Dash shouted and reached over to pick her up off the stool. “Wish, talk to me!” She said as she lightly shook the filly.

“Relax, she’ll merely be asleep for a little while. I didn’t need her talking to you right now,” Harlequin Grey huffed.

Rainbow Dash checked and noticed that Wish was indeed still breathing easily. She sighed in relief and hugged the filly close to her chest before carefully placing her on the starry ground. “Good... you’re okay.” She then took a deep breath and glared at Harlequin Grey. “And you.”

“Been a while. I see that my brother helped you out, I hope you didn’t thank him at least, he’s not any better than I am in your eyes.” His eyes narrowed and he ran a hoof back over his slick mane. “Hmph, this entire day has been a colossal waste of time and effort then. And I have neither the desire or means to engage with you right now in any other fashion. Farewell until I find a different way to deal with you, Rainbow Dash,” he turned and started to walk away.

“It was you in the first place. Wasn’t it?”

Harlequin Grey paused and looked over his shoulder at her, raising a questioning eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

Rainbow Dash blankly stared back at him. “I remember what Dreamweaver said. About a “peculiar” pony he met who gave him that device and crystal. That was you, wasn’t it?”

At first it seemed like he wasn’t going to answer, but then he turned fully to face her again. “You are correct.”

“Why?” Rainbow Dash bit out, her expression instantly darkening.

“Because I thought he could help me. Unfortunately he didn’t do what I wanted with the device given to him, he adjusted it for his own purposes and tried to make that nonsense dream of his come true. Originally it was meant to completely drain the emotions from the wearer, not harvest them, and leave them an empty husk. Dreamweaver selfishly went directly against what I asked him to do. I wanted emotions deadened, not despair increased. Typical pony only causing problems for me.” His eyes then flickered down to the sleeping form of Wish. “And it turns out his daughter is as worthless as he was.”

The blue hoof of Rainbow Dash collided with his face before he could even blink.

However, Harlequin Grey was not knocked away, his head didn’t turn with the blow either. Instead—much to Rainbow Dash’s shock and confusion—his skin expanded outward before popping like a balloon and blasting her away with an explosion of smoke. She coughed as she slid backward across the starry floor to come to a stop by Wish, squinting her eyes shut and lifting up a hoof to try and block most of the smoke from getting in her eyes. When the blast faded and the smoke stopped spreading, she was able to look at where Harlequin Grey had just been standing.

A cloud of smoke now obscured that side of the starscape, and behind it, a writhing mass of something squirmed in the shadows. It never stopped moving, or settled on any solid form, it melted and shifted like wax constantly.

“Well. That’s the first time you decided to strike me.”

Rainbow Dash immediately came back to her senses and protectively stood in front of Wish, glowering at Harlequin Grey or whatever it was behind the smoke. “And it won’t be the last.”

“It will be today. I’ve already told you how I abhor fighting and violence. Especially the pointless kind. And I am not so at my wit’s end that I will resort to such here. There is no reason for me to engage in such disgusting noise with you yet.”

“So you’re just going to slink away again?”

“That is also correct.”

“Then let me give you some advice. You had better never show your face in front of me again if you aren’t prepared to fight. What happened in Hoofica... the other things I know you’ve done... and what else? I don’t know what’s going on in your head, what you really are, or what you want, but I know it’s nothing good. What else have you done out here and in the rest of the world?” Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth in anger as she asked him.

“...” The writhing figure of Harlequin Grey was silent for a moment.

“Well? Too scared to answer?”

“Quite a few things that have been undone by you and your friends as of late.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at him. “Huh?”

“First your friend Applejack dismantled my cult before it could even get off the ground and do what I wanted it to. Then she freed an imprisoned city that was kept stagnant due to my efforts. After that it was Rarity completely tearing down an entire kingdom I had helped to keep locked in an unchanging stasis for centuries. Then even that moronic blue unicorn you know destroyed a useful tool of mine before he could help me and caused a number of chaotic mishaps along the way. But those in the end were only minor problems and setbacks. Nothing I couldn’t eventually reverse with a little time.”

“You, however, you and your stupid adventure to the north were too great of a threat. What you’re doing threatened everything I’ve been working towards since I was created. I could no longer sit back and do nothing. That’s why I’ve been trying to stop you, and taking greater measures to try and stop you as of late.”

“What are you...” Rainbow Dash’s eyes slowly widened. “Supernova. That was you who sent her after me. I knew no one on this side of the world could’ve known I was here or would want me dead... except for you. And... and...” Rainbow’s body trembled in rage, every fiber of her being filling with anger. “Chaotic little circus. Chaos magic. You’re the one!” She shouted at him, spit flying from her mouth, practically frothing. “You’re the one who created the plague at Pinetree Warren!”

“And what if I am?”

Tears spilled from Rainbow Dash’s eyes as she grit her teeth together so hard they almost broke. “Because of you.... because of you Anathema died. Turnip’s parents, all those other ponies, they all died because of you!”

“I could just as much lay the blame at your hooves, if you had simply taken my earlier advice and turned around it never would’ve happened. The fact is you’ve always been selfish and you know it. Your adventure, your very actions have caused just as much death and chaos as anything I’ve done since it started. Perhaps that’s what happens when you try to play the hero without Twilight Sparkle to guide you.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head swiftly, bringing a hoof up to wipe away the tears as best she could. “I don’t... I don’t need you telling me any of that. I know how badly I’ve messed up. But nothing’s changed since that last time we met in Pinetree Warren. And I still need to stop you from doing anything more.”

She exhaled and took a few seconds to catch her breath before looking up at the stars passing by overhead. “You know something?”

“What?”

“I said something horrible, something so wrong, to Dreamweaver when we were all in that tower, and he was trying to get Wish to despair. I said I would kill him. And I meant it. I know it’s wrong, I really do, and I’ve told others on my journey it’s wrong, but I still meant it. Because he was just that evil, he made me so mad, so disgusted, I hated him so much for what he did to her, to me, and everyone else. Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie, Starlight, Spike, Scoots, everybody... I-I really think they’d be horrified to hear me say something like that, but I’m not going to lie to myself. It’s wrong, I wouldn’t want to have to do something like that, but that’s the thing. If I had to do it. I would.”

Rainbow Dash shut her eyes to compose herself before tilting her head back down and opening them, staring straight at the shadowed unknown form of Harlequin Grey. “And it’s the same here with you now. This is me telling you, right here and now, that the next time I see you—I’m going to kill you.”

The writhing thing that existed beyond the smoke regarded her silently for another moment.

“Likewise.” Harlequin Grey finally said.

A flash of light came from his shadowed form, blindingly intense it washed over the entire starscape and Rainbow Dash had to look away. There was no warmth or heat to it, merely an unwelcoming light. When she could see from behind her eyelids that the light had died down she opened her eyes up and looked around.

The desert. The white sandy desert she and Wish had been traveling through just earlier.

Rainbow Dash looked up at the sky and saw that seemingly barely any time had passed since they had entered the big top. Wish was fast asleep on the sand right behind her, her chest rising and falling in frequency. Rainbow took the time to breathe deeply a few times before sitting down next to Wish and placing her hoof on the filly’s head. She spent a little while just sitting there, letting herself and the filly rest as the sun lazily passed by overhead. After what might have even been an entire hour, she stood up and picked Wish up before carefully depositing the still sleeping filly on her back, making sure to not wake her up. It all felt okay right now. Even for just this moment.

With a small smile on her face, Rainbow Dash continued to walk south with Wish through the desert.

Author's Note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntG_EEfpasM

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapters!

Great story arcs!

[TheCommunistDog]

Well seems like a lot has happened back in Equestria while Dash has been gone...

In today's chapter: Wish refuses the gift Harlequin Grey tried giving her.

[Cosmic Potato]

Rainbow dash right now:

[redmar]

I can't remember what cult Harlequin Grey referred too that Applejack dismantled but I think that the kingdom that she freed was near the end with help from Daylight Gleam.

[RoboRed]

Man...what is up with that guy? What's his deal?

I have a lot of other stuff to catch up on once I've caught up with this story. I really do.